AMD in the red but things not looking black

a staff writer, 19th April 2013

AMD reported its Q1 numbers last night and they were slightly better than Wall Street’s expectations.

Revenue was down 32 percent from a year ago, but at $1.09 billion it was still above expectations. AMD’s net loss narrowed to $146 billion, still in the red but better than expected.

The slow PC market is clearly taking its toll, but things could have been worse. AMD’s Q4 results were quite similar, a 32 percent drop in revenues and a similar loss. The first quarter was the slowest quarter for PC sales in two decades, and with that in mind AMD isn’t looking too bad.

AMD generates about 80 percent of its revenue from the PC industry. Most of its revenue comes from APUs and GPUs, but it did not have any noteworthy product launches in the first quarter. Things should get better towards the end of Q2 and beyond, as shipments of new low-power APUs and custom chips for the PlayStation 4 and next-gen Xbox pick up.

Although analysts agree that the results are better than expected, some investors don’t appear to subscribe to the same point of view. AMD stock fell in early trading, but it recovered in late trading, ending the day up 4.58 percent. However, after hours trading wiped out most of its gains and the stock dipped 3.98 percent.

AMD hopes to return to profitability later this year. CEO Rory Read said the company will continue to restructure and diversify its portfolio, attacking high-growth markets like dense servers, ultralow-power clients, embedded and semi-custom chips.